MAG Beta Frontlines Report

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A few editors lock and load on Zipper's battlefield.

By Greg Miller

My single biggest complaint from when I first saw MAG in April 2009 has been fixed; you can now melee attack with one button. Hallelujah. However, after fiddling around with the open beta – the one you can download right now off of the PlayStation Store for free – I still have mixed emotions when it comes to the latest from Zipper Entertainment. I enjoy running and gunning as much as the next guy and taking down a room filled with enemies, but it's a pain to wait 20 seconds to respawn, then run forever to the next objective, and then get sniped by someone camping over on the horizon. Don't get me wrong, I know that happens in these types of games all the time, but you're being asked to cover a lot more ground than your usual shooter and then you have to wait upwards of 20 seconds to respawn.

MAG seems to be lacking in the fun department – at least at the moment.

I'm sure you know the basics of MAG, but if you need a refresher, this is the game that boasts MMO elements and 256 players online. When you start a career, you'll side with one of the three private military corporations in the game (Valor, SVER or Raven) and begin fighting battles in its honor. You'll be part of an eight-man squad that's part of a 32-man platoon that's part of the 128-person army. Each of those levels have leaders who are to guide the troops as one organized unit of attack.

That's where the beta isn't really getting the point. I've played and had a number of editors play at my desk today, and it's pretty rare to find a group of kids rocking headsets. I know a lot of people don't talk when they play online titles, but the cornerstone of this game is communicating with each other as a cohesive army. Usually, I'm only finding one or two people in my eight-person platoon who can audibly communicate with me. Without that avenue, everyone runs around doing their own thing. I mean, people are bleeding out all over the place – you can choose to respawn when shot to death or wait a while hoping someone comes along to revive you – and no one is helping each other. It was super-rare for there to be coordinated attacks on targets. When you start the beta, you only have access to 64-player matches, so you'll have to level up to get to the point where you can have 256 people just running all over the place.

Of course, this is still a beta; things are probably going to change between now and the game's January 26th release date, but right now, MAG isn't doing it for me. I feel like I spawn, run for a really long time, maybe pop a couple of guys, and then get waxed. Next, I have to wait to respawn and do it all over again.

The guns are cool and leveling-up to earn skill points to spend on modifications is a fine idea, but the experience of snagging those rewards is so bland and at times frustrating – why can't I stop reloading to do a quick knife attack? I look like an idiot running up on a guy, starting a reload, and having to dance around while I finish that animation so that I can have the ability to stab again. Why isn't there one button that handles throwing a grenade instead of having to cycle to it and then pull a trigger? Why do RPGs pack no punch?

MAG isn't a lost cause or anything. The game looks pretty at points, there's a deep leveling system, and if you get a bunch of hardcore players together, the army dynamic might workout. However, I wasn't having that great of an experience today, and neither were the other IGN editors who picked up the controller. Here's what they had to say…

Nick Kolan, IGN MMO Editor Unless you have the reaction speed of a coked-out racecar driver, MAG is currently a frustrating experience at best. Even with a heavy kit equipped (allegedly offering you protection out the wazoo at the cost of mobility) when you encounter an opponent, one of you will die in the next three seconds. Then the other will die immediately afterwards from their backup. Guaranteed. In a game with the potential for so many players to be running and gunning, "realistic" deaths, while probably accurate, aren't going to be fun. On top of that, although the maps are large (perhaps too large to keep the momentum going), interactivity is minimal, and some areas that would be prime sniping territory but are entirely locked out by invisible walls.

Blap-blap!

Jim Reilly, IGN News Editor In the short time I had with MAG, the controls felt tight and responsive and there was little no noticeable lag. If you're a fan of team killing, though, MAG seems like an excellent choice to scratch that itch. Knife kills are quick and easy (tapping R3), and spawn reload times are relatively short. I was never voted out during any of my matches, so that means either MAG players have thick skin, or they were just having trouble finding the 'vote to kick' option in the menus. Hey, it's either you or them, I always say.

Hilary Goldstein, IGN Editor in Chief Playing MAG for a half hour really makes me appreciate Modern Warfare 2. I know this is just a beta, but this has hardly gotten me excited for this upcoming PS3 exclusive. My big concern is that this game is going to be a haven for campers. Since there are so few spawn points, no kill cam and often little idea of where your killer is located, it's going to be really easy for people to find good hiding spots and lay waste to people. And it takes so damn long to run back to the action that it's going to become really disheartening for a lot of gamers to die so quickly and so often. I don't have high hopes for this one.